(No.82) Measures and Practices for Promoting Open Knowledge Environment (OKE) in Developing Countries

With the joint efforts of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and CODATA Task Group in Developing Counties, the Principles and Guidelines of OKE in developing counties were discussed at the IGF 2011. As the follow up action, discussion and debate, CAST and CODATA Task Group in Developing Counties will joint organize the IGF 2012 workshop focuses on promoting Open Knowledge Environment (OKE) in developing counties from the measure and practice dimensions. Panelists from China, Europe, Canada and CODATA, and remote panelists from South African, Japan, and Kenya will share experiences at the workshop. Cases on open-courses (open university) and training trainers will demonstrate progress of sharing knowledge resources from universities and professors. Cases on OKE supported by ICT and space technology for quick responses for disaster mitigation will provide experiences how OKE benefits society timely. Case on OKE for citizens from digital museum for environment will show how the joint action among the international organizations could work together with ICT and how these actions could benefit worldwide citizens. The issues of managing intellective properties in OKE, international cooperation on measures for joint actions and promoting OKE in developing countries will be presented at the workshop. Measures in practical dimensions of promoting OKE in developing counties will be discussed. These issues may include coherence knowledge management policies, ICT applications for opening diversity knowledge and multiple cultures, long term preservation and open access to digital knowledge, especially in the institutional level, OKE for yang generation and capacity buildings, the role of scientific associations in coordinating international cooperation and the joint actions. The OKE for/in/with the least-developed countries will be addressed as well.Agenda
Chair: GAO Xinmin
GAO Xinmin
Opening Remarks
Presentation
LIU ChuangInclusive Methodology of Open Knowledge Environment on Geomuseum –A Joint Effort from IGU-CODATA-GSC
TAO Xiaofeng Cases on Open-courses from China's Universities
Anna NEVES Open Knowledge for Economic and Social Growth
ZHOU XiangKnowledge and Cases of Earth Observation Application for Disaster Mitigation and Management
XUE Hong Third Revision of Chinese Copyright Law and Open Access to Knowledge
William Drake OKE and IGF
Discussions led by GAO Xinmin
Closing by GAO Xinmin

Consultative Committee on UN Information Technology (CCIT), China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) Internet Society of China (ISC) Task Group of Preservation of and Open Access to Scientific Data in Developing Countries, Committee on Data for Science of Technology, International Council for Sciences （TGDC/CODATA/ICSU） Global Alliance for Access to and Application of Scientific Data in Developing Counties (GAID e-SDDC)

SPEAKER BIOS OF WORKSHOP-82
Measures and Practice for Promoting the Open Knowledge Environment (OKE) in the Developing CountriesMr. Gao Xinmin
Vice President, Internet Society of China
Member of the Advisory Committee for the State Informatization, P. R. China
Vice-Chiar, Consultative Committee on UN Information Technology (CCIT), China Association for Science and Technology(CAST)

Dr. Liu Chuang
Professor, Institute of Geography and Natural Resources, Chinese Academy of Science, China
Director, Digital Lin Chao Geomuseum, Geographical Society of China
High Level Panel of Advisors of UNDESA GAID
Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the UNDESA GAID e-SDDC
Member, Consultative Committee on UN Information Technology (CCIT), China Association for Science and Technology(CAST)Prof.Dr. TAO, Xiaofeng
Professor, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Member, Consutative Committee on UN Information Technology (CCIT), China Association for Science and Technology (CAST)Visiting Scholar of Stanford University
Vice Director of Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communications (Ministry of Education)Ana Cristina Amoroso Neves
Head of International Affairs at Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation, Ministry of Education and Science
Public Agency with the Mission of Coordinating the Policies for the Information SocietyDr. ZHOU Xiang
Director of Sciences and Technology Department, Institute of Remote Sensing Applications (IRSA), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Chair of Show Cases and Best Practices System Sub-group, CODATA Task Group in Preservation of and Access to Scientific Data in Developing Countries
Member of Committee for Remote Sensing, Chinese Society of Space Research (CSSR)
Director of R&D Division of National Engineering Laboratory of Satellite Remote Sensing ApplicationsDr. Hong Xue
Professor of Law, Director of the Institute of the Internet Policy & Law
Beijing Normal University (BNU), ChinaWilliam J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
University of Zurich, Switzerland

Please estimate the overall number of women participants present at the session:

About half of the participants were women

Please include any comments or recommendations you have on how to improve the inclusion of issues related to gender equality and:

Invite female speakers to the session, then the issues will be viewed, discussed, explored with angle of female.

Report

Reported by:

MA Jing

A brief substantive summary and the main issues that were raised:

How the inclusive mechanism works in developing countries

There is an urgent need of OKE in developing countries, because it is so important for the development of science, technology, socioeconomic development and environment protection in those countries. The most challenges of OKE in developing countries are: (1) limited resources; (2) limited capacity ability; (3) strategies and policies gaps; and (4) less experiences. It becomes the most important and key to have an inclusive mechanism in building an OKE within the limitations or weaknesses in developing countries. Professor LIU Chuang indicated that an inclusive mechanism play key role in both calling contributions from funding agencies, personals and institutions related, as well as benefiting science and broad society else. She took the Digital LIN Chao Geomuseum as an example to illustrate the methodology from collection, archive, creation, integration between science and arts, citation, and to online services to set up the OKE platform. Dr. Ms. Ana Neves indicated that enhancing cooperation between industry and developing counties is most efficient solution for OKE in developing countries. She took the experiences of Open Access to scientific research in Portuguese Speaking Countries to explain how the inclusive mechanism works in her case.

Experiences and lesion learn based on the cases

Four cases were demonstrated at the forum. They are (1) Joint Effort on Digital Geomuseum from IGU (International Geographical Union), CODATA (International Committee on Data for Science and Technology, International Council of Sciences) and GSC (Geographical Society of China); (2) Open Coursed of Universities of China; (3) Open Knowledge for Economic and Social Growth: the Case of Portuguese Speaking Countries; and (4) Open Knowledge for Disaster Mitigation and Management from IAA (International Academy of Astronauts).

Professor LIU Chuang presented the progress of Digital LIN Chao Geomuseum. She said under the joint effort from IGU, CODATA and GSC, as well as contributors of more than ten organizations and institutes, and hundreds of personals, the online museum was developed as an open knowledge environment for worldwide geography and broad society. The online halls includes OKE for understanding geographers, OKE on Qinghai-Tibet-Himalayas, OKE on earth observation and satellites, OKE on International cooperation programs (for example: international polar year programs in 1882-1883, 1932-1933, 1957-1958, 2007-2008). Thousands of geo - post stamps from more than one hundred countries during the last more than one hundred years have been donated to the museum. The Museum commitment, under the Letter of Interest from IGU, CODATA and GSC, on integrating the collections with geographical knowledge and art, and deliver the products online, makes the museum more and more attractive, not only reorders, but also donors. The online museum becomes one of the knowledge sources for geographical research, environment education and culture e-learning for broad society.

One case was demonstrated by Prof. TAO Xiaofeng. He took open coursed of universities of China as a case. He introduced the background of the Open-course of China universities; provided information about the open-course’s changes in China; particularly summarized the open-course’s Characteristics in China. In the first section, Prof. Tao talked about the MIT OCW (Open Course Ware) in 2000 and the following OCWC (OCW consortium) in 2005. From which clearly showed how open-course developed in the world. In the second section, Prof. Tao first illustrated the reason why China needs its own OCW, which are language difference, cultural difference and technical problems. Then he introduced three different open-course related projects in China, which are High-quality curriculum construction, College Video Open Course (CVOC) project and The Open University of China. China’s open-course is expending its influence all over the country. In the last section, Prof. Tao introduced the Open-course’s Characteristics in China from three elements: Resource Construction, Deliver and Target Group.

Dr. ZHOU Xiang presented application Cases of Earth Observation for Disaster Mitigation and Management. The knowledge and application methods of earth observation were introduced with different cases, including earthquake, typhoon, flood, sea ice, snowing, frog, drought, fire, oil spill and other natural disasters. His presentation analyzes the problems and challenges in the field of disaster relief using space technologies. Case system with support of internet would promote the openness and sharing of knowledge and information of disaster mitigation, which is able to facilitate the reuse of knowledge or experience derived from past application projects. Architecture of case based system is proposed technically. A framework for Disaster Management Spatial Information System and Services was illustrated. The web-based system for Disaster Management Spatial Information sharing is expected to be a useful reference for prediction, rapid response monitoring and monitoring of natural disasters in developing countries which experiences the severe damage caused by natural disasters. The establishment of such a system allows the professional, practitioner and business communities, and the interested public, to benefit from research.

Ms. Ana Neves presented case from Portugal on Open Access to scientific research in Portuguese Speaking Countries. She analyzed the cases of Open Knowledge in Brazil and Portugal and some African countries. Her presentation indicated Institutional repositories, digital libraries for theses and dissertations as well as Open Access Electronic journals have been steadily growing in Portuguese Speaking Countries. Portuguese-speaking countries made significant advances on the number of Open Access scientific journals and available documents. Portuguese-Brazilian cooperation should be extended to the community of Portuguese Speaking Countries, supporting the emergence and development of Open Access initiatives and activities in countries where they do not exist yet. Supporting the creation and implementation of Open Access repositories and journals in more Portuguese Speaking Countries should be enhanced. The countries should Share good practices, resources, documents and guidelines for developing OA in the Portuguese Speaking world.
After the presentation, three questions were raised up by the remote participants: 1.Do you have any suggestions for other developing countries since the government may not have enough money for finance project. 2.The degree awarded as a result of online course, will it be equivalent to normal university degree, in terms of quality of education. 3. It seems that a lot of the work is centralized by Ministry of Education in China, what is the advantage and disadvantage.

Panelists answered the questions above and more discussions provided.

How balance Open Knowledge Environment and Knowledge Intellectual Protection in developing countries

It seems that it is always conflicted to each other between the Open Knowledge Environment and Knowledge Intellectual Protection. Professor Xue indicated that open access to knowledge and information has become a global campaign. Also, she mentioned that this year is a global Professor’s campaign against the scientific publication system because the expensive payment for the journals. Professor Xue stressed the importance and significance for building up an open access knowledge and information environment in China. She thinks when we are sharing the information, we should remember there is something called copyright stand in the middle, meaning that the information property we are sharing actually belongs to somebody else which is protected by laws in different countries. Professor Xue thinks the copyright system has two different significances: on one side, it protects people’s creation and achievement, on the other hand, it also has many rooms to enable people to access to knowledge. Professor Xue was specifically required to talk about this open teaching, or open cause and copyright. She mentioned that under the Chinese current copyright law, only room teaching, only limited reproduction or translation of copyright work can be used for classroom teaching, which is a kind of defense against any copyright claimed from copyright authors. She thinks probably the Ministry of Education can take away teacher’s creation, which belongs to the projects, but maybe the third parties copyright involved will not be happy to be taken away to be used for education. So, Professor Xue thinks we need to think about the legal framework we are living in and that's actually a soft infrastructure we've to take into account. In the end, she wished a more open world, more open, available information, and knowledge to everyone.

Conclusions and further comments:

The OKE in developing countries is one of the most important issues for IGF. Dr. William Drake provided further comments that most developing countries got benefits from OKE, especially disaster management and scientific research, education and society. The OKE workshop of the 7th IGF made awareness from most stakeholders, both from developing and industry countries. This is a very efficient workshop. The issues identified by the workshop, the solutions discussed and cases and experiences on it during the last a few years make this workshop special contribution to IGF. Mr. GAO Xinmin summarized the workshop. He indicated that the progresses from panelists on cases and practices of OKE indicated that the issues on OKE in developing countries is a challenging issue, it would not done by only one country or only developing countries itself , IGF is a necessary platform to call international team to have joint effort on it. CAST will continue to contribute himself on it with worldwide stakeholders under the IGF and all possible opportunities. He also indicated three ladies joint the panel team which obviously indicated that how the inclusive mechanism could contribute to the OKE.